


Shut Up and Dance With Me

by Yavemiel



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Anxiety, Awkwardness, Dancing, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26996674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yavemiel/pseuds/Yavemiel
Summary: Henry is very nervous about dancing. Alex helps.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 18
Kudos: 85





	Shut Up and Dance With Me

**Author's Note:**

> With apologies to anyone who actually knows anything about ballroom dancing, this is my attempt at Henry does Strictly (with a completely fictional professional partner).
> 
> Much thanks to absolute-worst-idea for encouraging me to keep tipping away at this one!

Alex is busy trying (and failing) not to get his ass soundly kicked by Nora on Mario Kart, so when his phone rings he doesn’t even glance at his screen as he picks it up and wedges it between his ear and his shoulder so that he can keep two hands on the controller.

“You have reached Alex’s voicemail, he’s busy right now definitely not being beaten off the track by-”

“Alex!”

He frowns and tears his eyes away from the game for the first time, hitting the pause button and ignoring Nora’s shrieks of rage so that he can put down the controller and pay proper attention to his phone.

“Henry? Babe?”

“I can’t do this.”

Alex is perplexed for a moment. Henry has been doing Strictly Come Dancing for the past six weeks, and so far he’s been filled with a mixture of mortification at dancing in public while not under the influence of alcohol, and delight at the sparkle and joy and panache of the whole experience. He’s been getting better at the dancing too, loosening up as the weeks go on and allowing his natural physical ability to overcome his natural stiffness at performing in public, and the crowds have been lapping it up eagerly, along with the judges. Last week he had flashed his proper, genuinely enjoying himself smile at the end of his routine and Alex had been practically able to hear the sound of heartbeats picking up around him in the audience.

This week though...

“It’s the rumba, isn’t it,” Alex says, less of a question and more of a statement. So far Henry’s avoided the more sensual dances, going either for classy elegance (like his second week Viennese Waltz, which he’d barely needed any training for thanks to his upbringing) or high energy fun (like last week’s jive, which had seen him and his partner tearing round the floor at breakneck speed, clearly having the time of their lives).

Henry’s frustrated sigh echoes down the phone line at him.

“I just...I can’t...there’s so much,” Henry says helplessly, and Alex’s brain fills in the gaps helpfully enough and comes up with ‘gay, deeply repressed upbringing, not used to shaking his tailfeathers without alcohol involved’.

“Okay, sweetheart? You need a break,” Alex says firmly.

“But the show is tomorrow!” Henry half-yells, and Alex can hear the barely concealed panic.

“I know, but right now, you’re just working yourself up,” he says calmly. “Take a break, go outside, get one of those security people who’re constantly milling about to bring you an iced, decaf latte and take five, I promise, you’ll feel so much better.”

There’s brief silence on the other end of the line before Henry blows out a breath and mumbles “Ok.”

“Great,” Alex says, “you’re doing amazing sweetheart, I love you.”

“I love you too,” Henry says before he hangs up, and Alex can hear the smile in his voice as he says it.

He taps disconnect on his own phone, then uncurls from his cross-legged gaming pose, hopping to his feet.

Nora looks at him knowingly. “Going to rescue your boy?”

“You know it,” he says, giving her a smile. “You’ll just have to wait for some other time for me to finish kicking your ass at Mario Kart.”

He flees the room cackling to the sound of her outraged shrieks, and pops into his own room to change into jeans and grab his shoes before slipping out the side entrance of the royal residence, Amy hot on his heels.

It’s just under an hour's drive from Kensington to the studios where Henry is filming and Alex spends the majority of it fiddling absent-mindedly with the signet ring that he still keeps on a chain around his neck, tapping his fingers against it in a soothing rhythm. As soon as they pull up outside the studios, Alex hops out of the car and makes a dash for the building, not checking to see if Amy is following him. He’s been here before, a tour of the studios with Henry back when Strictly were still pitching to have him on, and he knows which one Henry’s in, chosen specifically by his security detail.

Shaan is standing outside the door when Alex dashes up, and he says nothing, just raises an eyebrow as Amy comes tearing down the hall after him, and waits til she’s caught up before opening the door into the practice room and gesturing them in.

Alex sneaks in, able to hear Sam Smith’s voice blaring from surround-sound speakers in the walls, the opening lines of ‘How Will I Know’ ringing in his ears. He spots Henry immediately in the open plan practice space, focused intently on his partner as she demonstrates a pattern of foot movement that Alex is too far away to clearly discern.

She clicks a button and the music restarts. The two of them come together for the opening sequence of the dance, and Alex can see the issue immediately. Maia, Henry’s partner, is fluid and precise and sensual, the lines of her body almost liquid as she flows from one movement to another, molding her body around Henry’s. Henry on the other hand looks like he wishes he was anywhere but in this room. He’s going through the motions, but his body is stiff, his motions jerky, and he looks like he’s trying to minimise physical contact between himself and Maia at all times.

They barely make it through the opening verse before breaking apart, and Alex can read the deep frustration written in the lines of Henry’s frown, and even Maia’s smile seems a little fixed as she demonstrates the movement that Henry needs to make with his hips that he just seems incapable of replicating. Alex creeps closer, and manages to catch Maia saying ‘...okay take five and we’ll try it again’ over the music before it cuts out into a ringing silence with the tap of a button on her phone.

In the sudden quiet, his footsteps in the studio seem very loud, and Henry’s head swings sharply in his direction as he becomes aware of an audience to his struggles. His mouth is already open, no doubt to snap at the intruder, but when he sees Alex, his jaw drops instead.

Alex raises a hand and waves dorkily, suddenly self-conscious as he realises that he actually doesn’t know what he’s doing here. He just registered ‘Henry needs help’ and got in the car and drove for an hour, and now he’s here, he doesn’t know what to say. “Uh...hi?”

Henry’s mouth snaps closed and then opens again. “Hi...sorry, how long have you been there?”

“Not long,” Alex says, still inexplicably awkward, “just saw your last little practice session and didn’t want to, um, interrupt...Shaan let us in, so…”

He waves his hands helplessly as Henry continues staring at him, before Henry’s lips curve into a wry smile.

“You have no idea what you’re doing here, do you?” he asks.

“Not a fucking clue,” Alex swears fervently, narrowly resisting the urge to facepalm, and Henry surprises him by laughing, a real, big laugh.

“Well,” he says, “As you may have gathered from that little snippet, that makes two of us.”

“Sorry,” Alex says, “You just sounded like you were freaking out on the phone, and I thought maybe I could help...somehow...with my extensive knowledge of dancing.”

Henry is laughing again, and the awkwardness in the air vanishes as Alex watches the stiff line of his spine relax into something a little closer to the posture Alex is used to.

“Your extensive knowledge of dancing, eh?” he says, eyes alight with amusement, stepping into Alex’s personal space.

“Hey I can dance!” Alex says with mock affront, as his hands fall naturally into place at Henry’s hips, his face turning up to Henry’s like a flower to the sun.

“Don’t I know it,” Henry murmurs, quietly, privately and then he dips his head to give Alex a quick kiss that quickly devolves into something a little longer, both of them instinctively curling around each other as Alex slides a hand up Henry’s side and into his hair.

They break apart reluctantly for air and (on Alex’s part at any rate) a sudden remembrance that they have an audience, but don’t move that far apart as Henry rests his forehead against Alex’s.

“This,” he says with quiet vehemence, “has been such a fucking day.”

Alex can’t help the snort of laughter at Henry’s uncharacteristic swearing, and his amusement brings a reluctant smile to Henry’s face too. He leans up instinctively and pecks another kiss against Henry’s smile, needing to feel it, and then they pull apart slightly.

“Alright,” Alex says with obnoxious cheer, “tell Alex all your problems, there’s nothing he can’t fix.”

Henry laughs again, and Alex notes with satisfaction that the last of the tension goes out of his shoulders.

He hears Maia moving around behind them, but Henry seems so relaxed that he doesn’t want to break the moment. ‘How Will I Know’ starts up again in the background, but quieter this time, less an intrusive noise and more a backdrop to their conversation.

“I just can’t get the movements to go together,” Henry says, the frustration creeping back into his voice. “I can do them all individually when I’m shown them, but I can’t make them flow the way they should.”

Alex nods solemnly, knowing instinctively that to make fun of Henry at this juncture would be a betrayal.

“Like this move,” Henry continues, and circles his hips into Alex’s, a slow grind that makes his breath hitch, “I just can’t make it work.”

“Seems fine to me,” Alex says, only slightly breathless, not that Henry seems to notice.

“Yeah, but that’s on its own,” says Henry, “when I try and run it into this move it...huh.”  
The ‘huh’ coincides with him swivelling his hips into Alex again, followed by a complicated little sashay that seems to rub their bodies together. Alex is very effectively distracted, but Henry is so caught up in the excitement of finally stringing two movements together that he seems completely oblivious. He’s humming a few bars of the music completely out of time with the song playing over the speakers, frowning down at his feet as he tries to match the timing to the beat.

The song comes to an end and immediately starts to replay. Henry grabs Alex’s hands and places them firmly on his hips.

“Okay,” he says, “you just stay there, I think if I just-”

He cuts himself off as the lyrics kick in, and he pulls Alex in close with a sharp, sudden movement.

Alex feels a little light-headed, Henry’s body and scent overwhelming his senses, but he pulls himself together and tries to remember the moves Maia had been performing when he came in. He’s sure it’s a crude approximation at best, but it seems to work, putting him in vaguely the positions that Henry needs. Henry meanwhile is moving like a dream, all the grace and elegance and sensuality that Alex knows he’s capable of unleashed by the very fact of having Alex close by, and he feels a massive swell of pride and love as his eyes catch Henry’s and lock.

They barely look away for the rest of the dance, breaking eye contact only for the brief moments required for Henry to twirl Alex away from his body and back in again, bodies moving completely in sync with each other. Henry dips Alex low towards the ground and holds him there for a beat before Alex realises that the song has ended, and this time it doesn’t restart.

He can hear Maia clapping and whooping in the background, but the sound fades out as he stares at Henry’s gorgeous, triumphal grin, which fades only slightly as Henry dips him even lower, dropping a quick, deep kiss on his mouth before lifting him to his feet with only a hint of effort that Alex can feel in the hard bulge of his biceps (possibly related, Alex might swoon).

“I knew you could do it,” Alex says, less smug and more breathless than he’d intended, but the resurgence of Henry’s gorgeous smile is his reward.

“Couldn’t have done it without you, love,” Henry murmurs, and Alex melts.

“Boys,” Maia interrupts, clapping them each on a shoulder. “That was amazing!”

The moment broken, they both turn to her, smiling.

“Henry, you never told me your boy was a dancer too,” she says.

“Oh he can bust a few moves,” Henry deadpans and it sounds so ridiculous in his Kensington-cut accent that Alex bursts out laughing, falling into Henry’s side, and Henry catches him, easy as breathing, easy as dancing.

Maia is laughing too, and shaking her head, but she looks genuinely happy for the first time since Alex entered the room.

“I’m telling you now, Prince Charming: if you dance even half as well as that tomorrow night, you’ll be at the top of the leaderboard. Hell, we might even earn ourselves a perfect 40!”

Henry looks skeptical, but he willingly follows her back to the centre of the room and assumes the starting position as Alex slinks to the side of the room to sit down by Amy and fan himself surreptitiously.

He stays for the rest of the practice session, whooping encouragingly as Henry, buoyed by his newfound confidence, starts to move with Maia rather than against her, and even though they still have a ways to go, Alex can tell this dance is going to be something special.

By the end of the practice session, it’s dark, Alex has drunk two frappucinos and played thirty levels of Candy Crush on his phone and Henry’s hair is plastered to his head with sweat. Even Maia’s seemingly inexhaustible font of energy seems to have run dry and her curls look deflated, but both she and Henry has the triumphal air of performers who know they’ve done their best work.

Maia claps Henry on the shoulder companionably, waves at Alex and vanishes through the double doors at the end of the studio.

Alex and Henry follow at a slower pace, and Alex bundles into the car with Henry, leaving Amy to drive the Secret Service car home. As soon as they pull out onto the motorway, Henry’s head begins to droop with exhaustion, eventually finding its way to Alex’s shoulder, lolling slightly with the motion of the car and making little snuffling noises as he drops into a light sleep. Alex smiles down at him, charmed, and shifts so that Henry’s head is less inclined to bobble.

Shaan catches his eye in the rearview mirror and smiles, a warmer smile than Alex is accustomed to. “Well, Mr. Claremont-Diaz, how do you fancy his chances?”

Alex looks down at Henry’s face, relaxed in peaceful sleep.

“I think he’s going to fucking nail it, and I’m gonna be there in the audience screaming, and then we’re gonna kiss in front of Bruno and the Queen and everybody.”

(He does. They do.)

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, if you did, please come and yell at me in the comments, or on Tumblr where I can be found under the same name! Thanks for reading :)


End file.
